Contemporary aircraft are designed against strict performance specifications developed by an aircraft manufacturer to ensure safe and reliable air travel during the service life of the aircraft. Periodically, or from time-to-time, components of the aircraft must be replaced, repaired, inspected or refurbished before the aircraft or the component may be placed back into service. One example of such aircraft components are aircraft wheels. As will be appreciated, aircraft wheels may be placed under significant stress from time-to-time during landing maneuvers. Accordingly, aircraft wheels must be inspected, and if failing to meet all specifications, must be refurbished before returning to service. To inspect or repair an aircraft wheel, all surface coatings (e.g., paint or anti-rust coatings) and contaminants (e.g., dirt, oil, grease or rust) must be removed prior to inspection.
Generally, the aircraft industry, and other vehicle industries, prefers soda blasting (as opposed to other media blasting) to remove wheel surface coatings and contaminants. Soda blasting is a non-destructive process in which sodium bicarbonate is applied to a surface under compressed air. Soda blasting is a mild form of abrasive blasting since the sodium bicarbonate is an extremely friable material that micro-fragments on impact to remove surface materials without damage to the surface being cleaned.
Soda blasting is performed in a soda blast chamber, which is a self-contained system that includes a blast generator, high pressure compressed air, blast hose and blast nozzle. A technician performing a soda blast maintenance process stands outside the soda blast chamber and must reach into the soda blast chamber using long rubber gloves fixed to a sidewall of the soda blast chamber. Since aircraft wheels may weigh 50-65 pounds (22.68-29.5 kilograms), holding and maneuvering an aircraft wheel during a soda blasting procedure can be extremely tiring for the technician due to stresses applied to the technician's back, arms, hands or wrists.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a solution for the difficulties of soda blasting or other cleaning procedures on aircraft of other heavy vehicle wheels. It is further desirable that technician fatigue be reduced while affording greater ease of operation. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.